All the Best in Gossip, News, and Weather ... with Meena◆the◆Cat

I take such pleasure in saving seeds from my garden harvests; folding in my hands the dried and mysterious code, and then the planting back into the composted soil in the spring. Little delights me more than this simple and economic act . . . to see the seeds return year after year. I hope to never be a criminal because of my garden seeds.

“Seeds have the power to preserve species, to enhance cultural as well as genetic diversity, to counter economic monopoly and to check the advance of conformity on all its many fronts.”

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle.The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

Albert Einstein | Unconfirmed“Geographer Gilbert F. White, according to his biographer in Living with Nature’s Extremes (2006), attributed this to Einstein in his Journal of France and Germany in 1942. Maybe so; but all he does is invoke “Albert Einstein said”. He says nothing about how he knows this, when or where it might have been said, whether he heard it directly or through a friend, or what the context may have been. With the preponderance of misattributions to Einstein being as large as it is, this is not a good sign. There is no striking reason to assert that Einstein couldn’t have said this; but there is also no striking reason to assert that he did.”

1. Be prepared for mud! Walkers/Runners - go through it down the center of the trail. This ensures our trails aren’t expanding and eroding conservation lands. Bikers – stay off muddy trails. Bikes leave ruts in the mud that will be there all season. Don’t want to get muddy – go in the morning when the ground is more solid or hit a trail in one of our parks
2. Be a responsible dog owner – spring means snow melt and lots of “presents” appear from the winter. Pick it up, toss it out. Bags on the side of the trail won’t walk themselves to the trash and are you really going to pick it up later?
3. Have awesome trail etiquette – hikers/runners and uphill traffic always have the right of way.

REALLY NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR STRAVA TIME BUT YOU.Be aware – take an earbud out if you’re recreating with music. Look up, be alert, recreate in control, be kind, high five people on the trail. Our open space lands are our shared resource.

The bulletin board in the alleyway got a facelift with the Year of the Brown Earth Dog cards (did you receive yours?) and some Bansky. Always more alley news to come. On my run this morning I saw the heron, so I too stop’d . . . just below Higgings Street bridge in a side channel . . . stop’d still and watching, listening, fishing, being stil.

‘OH, MY POLITICAL POSTS ARE ANNOYING YOU? Sorry, I assumed the future of THE EARTH was worth discussing.’The Magna Carta Of American Environmental Law Is Under Siege. . . “Citizens need to stop being passive. They need to put pressure on their elected officials, letting them know they are aware that selfish interests and greedy gluttons are pushing an agenda that is not in their best interests or that of their children’s best interests and they are not going to stand for it anymore. What does America desperately need? There needs to be a #MeToo movement started for the environment.” —Michael V. FinleyThe Bulletin board in the alleyway at toMake™ :: end of February

“People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they'll go to any length to live longer. But don't think that's the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you're going to while away the years, it's far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive then in a fog, and I believe running helps you to do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life — and for me. . . I believe many runners would agree”

2018 is the Chinese Year of the Brown Earth Dog. This lunar New Year starts February 16th 2018 and ends on February 4th 2019. And Lent started this week (what is your Lenten practice?); as noted on the toMake™ calendar.I’m on the letterpress printing Year of the Brown Earth Dog postcards. If you don’t get one in the mail shortly please be sure to eMail me with your current address and I’ll get one sent.

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”

MapFlat as the tableit’s placed on.Nothing moves beneath itand it seeks no outlet.Above—my human breathcreates no stirring airand leaves its total surfaceundisturbed.

Its plains, valleys are always green,uplands, mountains are yellow and brown,while seas, oceans remain a kindly bluebeside the tattered shores.

Everything here is small, near, accessible.I can press volcanoes with my fingertip,stroke the poles without thick mittens,I can with a single glanceencompass every desertwith the river lying just beside it.

A few trees stand for ancient forests,you couldn’t lose your way among them.

In the east and west,above and below the equator— quiet like pins dropping,and in every black pinprickpeople keep on living.Mass graves and sudden ruinsare out of the picture.

Nations’ borders are barely visibleas if they wavered—to be or not.

I like maps, because they lie.Because they give no access to the vicious truth.Because great-heartedly, good-naturedlythey spread before me a worldnot of this world.

I put down a second color, a transparent orange-red, on ‘The Island’ edition. I’m considering titling it ‘Surrounded by Water’. I don’t want to explain my maps, my visual responses anymore. There isn’t always an explanation! And next week Lent starts, as well Chinese New Year of the Dog, . . . this is a good time to touch that door knob that hasn’t an explanation.

This being ‘The Weather Report’ I thought I should address the weather in the toMake™ Missoula valley. During the past 12 months we saw a high of 100˚F and a low of -7.1˚F, approx. 20 in. of precipitation and some peak winds of 30+ knts. The most interesting was the summer; hot dry and smoky. There was 12 weeks where the weather was dominated by cloudless, but smokey (from nearby fires), noticeably low humidity, little change in the barometric pressure, and little or no rainfall. Remember to dance if you want to break the rules.

Three Things To RememberAs long as you’re dancing, you can break the rules.Sometimes breaking the rules is just extending the rules.Sometimes there are no rules.